Step-By-Step: The Perfect Hair Blow Out

Hairstylists have been known to work magic with just a hairdryer and a brush, and now you can too. Here's how to get the perfect hair blow out

Hairstylists are kinda like superheroes. Not only can they transform your look with a few scissor snips, but they know how to do something far harder — hold a hairdryer and a brush at the same time … and not drop them! (As you can tell, this is a skill I don’t have.) And with those two tools, they can take wet, bleh hair and turn it into a shiny, straight showstopper, aka the perfect hair blow out.

Of course, I don’t have the cash to get a blow out every time I wash my hair (they run $30 and up per appointment and I wash my hair a couple times a week). So I really only have one option: I need to learn how to blow out my hair on my own. It seems like a daunting task, so I decide to reach out to one man who knows everything about blow outs, Yoshi Hagiwara from Yoshi’s Hair Studio in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Before opening his own salon, Yoshi worked for over a decade as Frederic Fekkai’s head stylist. So he’s kind of a big deal.)

Not only did I get an amazing tutorial with step-by-step pics, but Yoshi was able to answer a lot of my blow out questions, from how to section the hair when it’s wet to how to achieve amazing volume just by the position of the hair dyer. But before we get started with all that, you have to have the right tools for the perfect hair blow out: a hair dryer and a brush.

According to Yoshi, the best type of hairdryer is an ionic one. “An ionic hairdryer is a high-tech, newer type of hairdryer that doesn’t get as hot as the traditional dryers, but still dries the hair quicker,” he says. These dryers also cause less damage to the hair because they aren’t so hot. However, this doesn’t mean you have to ditch your old-fashioned dryer. Since older model dryers do get so hot, these work best for those with really curly hair that need the extra heat to get their hair super straight.

As for the right brush, Yoshi recommends a natural boar bristle brush because it is “soft on the hair.” He also says to steer clear of a metal brush since “the heat from the blow dryer also makes the metal on the brush extremely hot, which can further damage the hair.”

Now that you’ve got your tools ready, it’s time to get started on your perfect hair blow out. Flip to the next page for the step-by-step blow out tutorial.